This is where a brave and beautiful bunch gather every week to find out what comes out when we all spend five minutes writing on the same topic and then sharing ’em over here.

How to Join:

Want to know how Five Minute Friday got started and how to participate? All the details are here.

Featured Five Minute Friday:

And every week I’ll pick a post that caught my eye and share it down there in my side bar – see where it says “Featured #FiveMinuteFriday”? Yea -that could be you! Hop on over and visit some folk who make fireworks in just five minutes. They inspire me.

And did you know there’s a whole community of writers that connect online before the prompt goes live on Friday nights? They use the Twitter hashtag #FMFParty and are about the most encouraging group around.

Now, set your timer, clear your head, for five minutes of free writing without worrying about getting it right.

1. Write for 5 minutes flat – no editing, no over thinking, no backtracking.
2. Link back here and invite others to join in.
3. And then absolutely, no ifs, ands or buts about it, you need to visit the person who linked up before you & encourage them in their comments. Seriously. That is, like, the rule. And the fun. And the heart of this community..

Oh and Ahem, if you would take pity and turn off comment verification, it would make leaving some love on your post that much easier for folks!

OK, are you ready? Please give us your best five minutes on:::

Home…

GO

Sometimes it’s baseball and apple pie. Sometimes it’s summer under Fourth of July skies and Traverse City cherry festivals. It’s little league and Labor Day and leaning into a country that’s offered me more family and memories than I ever could have imagined at 18. But sometimes home is a line of gumboot dancers stomping their way along back streets of Gold Reef City. It’s a Southern Cross serenade and my own three ululating with the shrieks and wails of glee of bursting through those Jo’burg airport doors. It’s dad with his glasses misted up and Wanda wrapping her arms around all three of my kids. It’s Jackson and Karabo reacquainting across balloons and toy cars.

Sometimes home is a Spur mushroom burger and a tall, cold glass of Appletizer. It’s the boys pushing off as high as they can feet stretched for a purple sky under the Jacaranda tree at the top of my father’s driveway. It’s tea at four in the afternoon, melktert and koeksisters and in the late evenings when kids have finally exhausted themselves asleep it’s droe wors and a glass of Amarula around the fire.

Home tastes like Ouma’s rusks and Five Roses tea. Smells like dry Karoo dirt and jasmine climbing up the outside of our thatch roof cottage. It’s the sound of Joshua and Luke swapping stories and their wives laughing with our kids. It’s Dutch accents and all these syllables of welcome wrapped around us in more languages than Pete would like. It’s a house full of kids in so many different shades of family – all these relationships winding themselves around my sinews and walking me back into a time out of time where I know my people and I speak the language.

Goeie More!
Sending you some African thunderstorms and Rooibos tea with Marmite toast love this morning from Pretoria South Africa! So wonderfull to hear the things you love about this country when so many look for excusses to leave. This is home. :)
Love your blog!
Warm liefde uit Suid-Afrika!
<3
MoniQue

Yup. That sounds about right. Except for me, my other home (where I live now) tastes like Szalami and Turo Rudi and smells like Töltött Káposzta. It is my kiddos singing Hungarian nursery rhymes and older women riding their bicycles to the market. It is strolling the streets of Budapest with my love and always looking up because that’s where the beauty is. What a gift to have two homes. In Hungary, there are 2 words for home: “here-home”–where you are now, and “there-home”–the word for home when you aren’t there. I always love to tell people that no matter where I am I have a “here-home” and a “there-home”, knowing, of course, that my truest “there-home” is being prepared even now for my arrival. A good reminder this week, as my grandfather went to be with Jesus on Monday!

Lisa-Jo
on March 10, 2013 at 12:01 pm

I love that. Here-home and there-home :) And I love Budapest – such a beautiful city.

So lovely to feel the familiar and homely feelings coming through this piece. Our family immigrated from SA to Canada and back again to Cape Town in the mid-80’s. When I went to live in Toronto for a couple of years as an adult, I also would travel back in my memories to all the things that made home in SA what it was, such a refuge!

This is beautiful – I felt like I was wrapped up in the same blanket with you and your family, experiencing all of the sights and sounds. Hopefully my children will think of “home” as the places they find family and friends rather than brick and mortar. Great post.

You make me want to go there so badly to see and hear and smell and taste all that you write about. Each of these posts makes me feel like I know you just a little better. What’s not to like about that?

Hi Lisa! I discovered Five Minute Friday by accident…I was new to twitter and saw #fmfparty. I thought it was Follow Me Friday, silly me. I was surprised to get a tweet from a follower of yours explaining what it was. I checked out your blog and LOVE the community that you have developed. Thanks for your openness to serve Him and provide a place where people can be themselves.

Lisa-Jo
on March 10, 2013 at 12:01 pm

Oh that makes me so happy, Katie. Yes they are the most wonderful group of enthusiastic encouragers, aren’t there? Welcome!

My parents live in TC now….I didn’t realize that was part of your MI stint. We loved our visit up that way this summer. And I love your thoughts on home. Like you, I’m from a bit of everywhere, and home is difficult to nail down with just a sentence or two.

” where I know my people and I speak the language” – oh, I love that -sometimes it’s not a geography thing – it’s a community thing. Your home – oh, it sounds beautiful – inside and out! Your sensory detail makes me want to pack up and come!

Thank you for inspiring for over a year before I have been brave enough to jump in and join you on a Friday (Saturday). Your enthusiasm, courage and youth have encouraged me from afar. Then today to read that maybe our roots are not so different, was rather fun. Today I am in Eastern Cape and was overwhelmed with the sights and smells you so graphically wrote about. Thank you for following your calling and inspiring women from around the world!

Lisa-Jo
on March 10, 2013 at 12:12 pm

You’re in the Eastern Cape? Right Now? Oh man, that’s where my heart lives. In the Karoo right outside of Middleburg. That’s where the farm is where my dad grew up. Beautiful beautiful country. So glad you decided to join us! There’s nothing to be afraid of – you can’t get it wrong. Just write :)

As always, this is a wonderful post. Thank you for the inspiration and I am really going to have to learn to use twitter! I loved thinking about what home means to me. As always, you topics are inspiring and remind me of those things that are most important.

Our family just moved six weeks ago from Cape Town to Michigan. Reading this post made me think, “Oooh! I know about those things! I know the Spur, and Appletizer and Ouma’s rusks and Five Roses tea!” :-) Thanks for transporting me back to SA temporarily …

Lisa-Jo
on March 10, 2013 at 12:14 pm

Oh wow, big transitions. Blessings on you guys as you survive winter over there :) It can be a bit of a shock to the system…

You can definitely see your expertise within the article yyou write.
The arena hopes for even more passionate writers like you who
aren’t afraid too say how thy believe. All the time go after youur heart.

I do not drop many comments, but i did some searching and wound up
here Five Minute Friday: Home. And I do haave some questions foor you iff
it’s allright. Is it simply me or does it look ass if like a few of the remarks ook like they are left by brain dead individuals?
:-P And, if you are posting onn additional places, I would like to keep up with anything fresh you have to post.
Could you make a list of every one of all your shared sites like
your twitter feed, Facebook page or linkedin profile?